WW2

Chapter 1: The Juggernaut

With the deafening blasts of artillery and the explosions that reached the heavens, the soldiers of the third German army group lined up. Officers walked down the countless men under their command, passing one tablet of pervitin to each eager man of the Wehrmacht.

It was in the early hours, not too long ago, Paul and his comrades marched through Belgium with ease, like a stroll in a park - minus the gunfire.

The artillery raged on, and the explosions disturbed the air, fuelling Paul's eagerness to march into northern France. The shells died in a sharp boom; it signalled for the Panthers to roll through whatever fortification was built to delay the inevitable. The drug began kicking in, and any fatigue of sleepless nights washed away. With his brothers in arms, he sprinted forward at the enemy.

He blinked, and already his bayonet was logged deep into a man's chest. He pulled it out and aimed at another who was using a car as cover. With a trigger pull, the target was no longer behind a car but out in the open sunshine of the late afternoon. Fatigue was beginning to take its toll. He took another tablet. Once again, the rush flooded his internal gates. Armed with his rifle and total disregard for his physical, he charged ahead into a cottage, it housed some of the enemies; memories hit him like a brick wall, much like the first days of Poland.
He looked down upon his hands as the once morning rush wore away 6 feet deep into the sewage.

Leaning against a wall in the early evening, he began slugging into a deep sleep. His officer walked by and handed him, another tablet. Another high.

"You can rest after we capture Calais."

"Calais? Are we not in the Ardennes?"

"Is your memory lagging like the horses?" He chuckled, "You're a couple hundred miles off."

As he took the tablet, his heart began to beat faster and uncontrollably. Feeding the high he was living off of. As the gears in his head started to kick in, he reloaded his rifle and gained courage. Peeking over some cover he was behind, he rested his rifle on the wall and took his aim. The Frenchmen down his sights.

The fuzzy memories messed with Paul's temper; he was in a house recollecting the recent past. Aside from a counter-attack in Arras, which he was ever grateful for not being a part of; the march to the coast was like cutting through swiss cheese. And like the horses that struggled to catch up with the tanks, his mind struggled to catch up with his body. Weeks blurred so cleanly into one and another with the aid of the drug.

Sweating and having an impulse for another dose, he drank his water. His better judgement held off the drug as he wasn't on the front.

He wrote in his diary his thoughts on the drug, and how he wanted the battles to be over with the urge to return to his hometown. His memories began to clear up, and he wrote down, with detail, the cold blood of the man on the wrong side of his bayonet. It was quite some time ago, not the first time he wrote about it. But he still felt the urge.
Whilst his friends in his platoon drank with joy and happiness that the fatherland returned from his depression, he drank to wash down his homesickness.

He closed his diary, and soon Calais would be captured and then, Dunkirk.